Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's timeframe is for making a decision on cases referred to UK Visas and Immigration Chief Casework Unit.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Service Level Agreement (SLA) for individual cases referred to the Chief Caseworker Unit is 14 days.
The Chief Caseworker Unit’s purpose is to put the customer at the centre of what we do. The unit receives referrals that seek additional support in their decision making. The unit will help overcome barriers to effective decision making, using discretionary and ethical consideration as appropriate. The centralised position of the unit can identify potential cross cutting issues and so will act as an interface with partners/policy and operational areas to develop longer term and sustainable solutions.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the decision making (a) methodology and (b) criteria are for cases referred to the UK Visas and Immigration Chief Casework Unit.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Service Level Agreement (SLA) for individual cases referred to the Chief Caseworker Unit is 14 days.
The Chief Caseworker Unit’s purpose is to put the customer at the centre of what we do. The unit receives referrals that seek additional support in their decision making. The unit will help overcome barriers to effective decision making, using discretionary and ethical consideration as appropriate. The centralised position of the unit can identify potential cross cutting issues and so will act as an interface with partners/policy and operational areas to develop longer term and sustainable solutions.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time was for her Department to make decisions on applications for family visas (a) made on the basis of the applicant's private life and (b) in total in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Our data base does not differentiate between the different routes within the family provisions of the immigration Rules.
If a customer is currently applying on private life grounds, there are no service standard processing times for these applications. However, we are informing customers on the UKVI website, on average, the wait time for a decision for such applications is currently 11 months. Please see the link to the UKVI website: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/visa-decision-waiting-times-applications-inside-the-uk#switch-to-or-extend-a-family-visa
The Home Office is working to reduce this timeframe.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people are employed in the UK Visas and Immigration MP's correspondence team.
Answered by Kevin Foster
There are 106 people employed in UK Visas and Immigration’s MPs correspondence team.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what was the average waiting time for asylum applicants to receive an interview in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is unable to state what the average waiting time is for an asylum interview in each of the last 12 months because this information is not held in a reportable format, not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main applicants only. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics: List of tables - GOV.UK (List of tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how long it takes on average for her Department to make a decision on an application for a super priority visa.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data and can be found at: Visas and Citizenship data: Q1 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many super priority visa service applications have exceeded her Department's target timeframe for a response.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data and can be found at: Visas and Citizenship data: Q1 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to protect members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK who have been accused of blasphemy from potential vigilantism.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
All forms of hate crime are completely unacceptable, and we have a robust legislative framework to respond to it. We are clear that the cowards who commit these hateful attacks should feel the full force of the law.
The Government will always protect people’s legitimate rights – for example, to free speech and to practise their religion within the law – but we cannot and will not shy away from challenging cultures and practices that are harmful to individuals, restrict their rights or hold them back from making the most of the opportunities of living in modern Britain.
We encourage all victims of crime to report these to the police so they can be properly investigated, and perpetrators can be brought to justice.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of Metropolitan Police stop and search practices on Black and ethnic minority communities.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government supports the fair use of stop and search. It is a vital tool to target violent crime and protect communities.
No one should be subject to stop and search because of their race and numerous safeguards including statutory codes of practice, body-worn video and extensive publicly available data collection exist to prevent this.